Redbirds' woes continue

Cubs 8, Redbirds 2

The Redbirds' 10th-anniversary season as the St. Louis Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate continued to sputter Tuesday with losses both on the field and in the Pacific Coast League offices.

Hours before suffering an 8-2 setback to Iowa before an announced crowd of 7,054 at AutoZone Park, the Redbirds learned they would have to forfeit an Aug. 18 victory over the Cubs for fielding an ineligible player.

At 54-84 -- and falling -- the 'Birds must win four of their final six games just to match last year's franchise-worst 58-86 mark.

"It's a pretty ugly picture," Redbirds general manager Dave Chase said of the team's fifth sub-.500 season in seven years.

The team's on-field futility, Redbirds founder Dean Jernigan said, is the primary reason the club has yet to agree with the Cardinals on an extension to its player development contract. That deal is set to expire after the 2008 season.

While Cardinals executives, including assistant general manager and chief PDC negotiator John Mozeliak, have met with Jernigan this week to discuss an extension, an agreement does not appear to be imminent.

"We talked," Jernigan said. "It's still a year away. ... Sometimes you do it early or sometimes you wait."

Along with Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty and senior director of professional scouting Bruce Manno, Mozeliak has spent the past two days assessing Redbirds players for potential September call-ups. Discussions regarding an extension to the PDC, he said, are of secondary concern at the moment.

"There's no urgency right now. That wasn't the point of this trip at all," Mozeliak said.

Before the Redbirds sign an extension, they want assurances that the Cardinals are committed to fielding a contender in Memphis rather than simply a holding tank for six-year free agents and marginal prospects.

The team's record the past two seasons has been a major source of frustration at AutoZone Park, where attendance is expected to decline for the sixth straight season.

As far as the possibility of pursuing another team -- Memphis is guaranteed a Triple-A club under the 1992 Professional Baseball Agreement -- Jernigan said "that's not a consideration at this point."

Noting that the Redbirds draw from Cardinal territory -- including Eastern Arkansas and Southeast Missouri -- on weekends, Jernigan said that "if we were affiliated with the Mariners, I'm not sure how many Mariners fans would be coming in."

The only other factor in the Redbirds' decision on an extension, Jernigan said, involves exhibition games. The Cardinals played the Redbirds in a preseason game at AutoZone Park in April, but that marked the Cardinals' first trip to Memphis since 2004.

But with the advent of the annual National Civil Rights Game in Memphis, that has become less of a hot-button issue at AutoZone Park.

Joe Mather's two-run homer, the right fielder's sixth in his last 10 games, wasn't enough to spare the Redbirds another defeat.

Former Redbird John Nelson hit a two-run homer to highlight a five-run seventh inning as Iowa (77-61) scored eight unanswered runs against the Memphis bullpen.

Earlier in the day, the Redbirds were told they had to forfeit an Aug. 18 victory over Iowa in which veteran catcher Kelly Stinnett mistakenly took part.

Having been placed on the restricted list by the Cardinals on July 1 after failing to report to Memphis, Stinnett became ineligible to rejoin the Redbirds after Aug. 1. Because of a clerical misunderstanding, Stinnett was activated Aug. 18 and hit a game-tying RBI single in the Redbirds' initial 7-6 victory over the Cubs.